Dongnae Reinforces its Goal to offer South Korea its first MLS with New Funding Round

Dongnae, a company started by Matthew Shampine, a former WeWork Asia General Manager, is joining the proptech boom, aiming to digitize the real estate market in South Korea. 

Recently, the platform has closed a seed round with $4.1 million, led by Flybridge and MetaProp, bringing Dongnae’s total funding to $4.8 million. 

The real estate market in Korea works in a very specific way. Most housing buildings have their own brokers. The ratio of brokers to properties is so great, there is actually the same number of brokerages in South Korea as there are in the States. 

Dongnae works like U.S. real estate company, Redfin. It offers buyers and renters a centralized place to search for properties. Dongnae has partnered with thousands of brokers in order to build a proper MLS for South Korea, something that hasn’t been done yet. 

Shampine explains:

“It’s not necessarily a franchise but it’s a really close partnership.”

Dongnae has been slowly building its digital inventory by reaching out to individual complexes, gathering 4K images, and watermarking them for the brokers while listing them on its own platform.

Dongnae is fairly new, having launched in the midst of the pandemic earlier last summer. In July of 2020, it raised significant funding from several angel investors in an initial seed funding round.